Es­cape From New York

Good qual­ity Car­pen­try

Out of all the pos­si­ble cult films that BOOM! Stu­dios could have looked to for their next se­quel se­ries, it’s no sur­prise that they’ve gone for John Car­pen­ter’s 1981 sci- fi thriller Es­cape From New York. Even the ter­ri­ble 1996 fol­low- up Es­cape From LA hasn’t dimmed the orig­i­nal’s punky bril­liance, and this new comic de­liv­ers un­pre­dictable ad­ven­tures for its grouchy eye­patched hero Snake Plissken.

The story picks up right af­ter Es­cape From New York’s cli­max, in a dystopian ver­sion of 1997- era Amer­ica where Plissken has just wrecked the du­plic­i­tous Pres­i­dent’s chances of es­tab­lish­ing a for­eign peace deal. Forced on the run, Snake tries to take shel­ter in the re­bel­lious Free Repub­lic of Florida, but FRF’s rulers have other ideas for him…

Three is­sues in, writer Christo­pher Se­bela is al­ready do­ing a fun job of cap­tur­ing the orig­i­nal movie’s mix of thrills, po­lit­i­cal science fic­tion and warped black hu­mour. He’s also got a great han­dle on Snake Plissken’s char­ac­ter, and is con­jur­ing up the cor­rect ’ 80s B- movie vibe. It’s just a pity that the ac­tion sto­ry­telling is oc­ca­sion­ally a lit­tle in­co­her­ent, while the func­tional art from Diego Bar­reto lacks style and grit.

De­spite th­ese flaws, it’s a more con­sis­tent and bal­anced read than the Big Trou­ble In Lit­tle China se­quel comic, and it’ll be in­ter­est­ing to see where Se­bela can take Snake’s weird and vi­o­lent ex­ploits. Saxon Bul­lock John Car­pen­ter wanted to do a third Snake movie called Es­cape From Earth, but Es­cape From LA’s fail­ure nixed that.